After victories at home against Colorado and St. Louis, the Nashville Predators will hit the road to face those same two teams, and the trip starts tonight against the Avalanche with an 8 p.m. CT puck drop at Ball Arena. Tonight's contest is the third of four meetings between the Preds and Avs this season; Nashville dropped the first outing before winning in a shootout on Tuesday.
The Predators followed that win over Colorado with a 7-2 triumph against St. Louis on Thursday, and tonight, they’ll face the NHL’s top team once more with the Avalanche set to provide another tough test for the visitors.
“I think we were prepared,” Preds Alternate Captain Ryan O’Reilly said of the win over the Blues. “We knew coming in that, obviously, we found a way to a good win against Colorado, but we haven't been really consistent. That was a big focus for us coming out, and having that energy, having that jump, and getting to our game…it's a good win. [We]feel good about this, but turn the page and prepare for Colorado. It's going to be a tough test going into there. So our focus has to go there.”
On Friday morning, the Predators traded defenseman Spencer Stastney to Edmonton in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft. During Friday’s practice in Nashville, General Manager Barry Trotz addressed the move.
“This is always a tough part of the job,” Trotz said. “Spencer was a fifth-round pick who grew up and developed his game to a point where he's playing on our [team]. When we looked at the value that we could get for Spencer with Edmonton, they gave us really fair and what we felt was strong value for him. [It’s a] situation that we feel that we're pretty deep on defense, organizationally, that it sort of triggered the move.
“A couple things it does. It probably frees us to get to some of our young forwards. We’ve carried eight [defensemen], it seems like you never have enough D, but we felt that we were getting blocked sometimes to get to some of our young forwards. We've got Justin [Barron] coming back [from injury], so we feel between him coming back, and then what we have in the system right now, that we’re still in pretty good shape. This gives us a little more flexibility going forward, and some draft capital going forward as well.”
Barron (IR), as well as forward Cole Smith (IR), both practiced on Friday. Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said following the session there are some players ready to return to the lineup from injury. Nashville has dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen over the past two wins.
